


Shattered Fairy Tale

by Lady_Khali



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 21:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Khali/pseuds/Lady_Khali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After twenty years of okay, Ginny needed--no, deserved--more. One shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found this one shot stuffed between a short story about the Fates and a bizarre fantasy piece I'll probably shove into the 'will never again see the light of day' drawer. Feel free to use it as inspiration for your own work.

When the train carrying the youngest of her three children passed out of sight, all Ginny Potter felt was relief. Relief her oldest son and his trunk filled with prank items, courtesy of her brothers, were now someone else's problem. No more exploding snap games that covered her parlor in psychedelic paint for three weeks. Relief her more sensitive son and daughter wouldn't witness what she had to do.

"It's time," she said softly to Harry.

The smile slipped off his face. "I thought you reconsidered."

She raised a hand to touch his face, but thought better of it. Her hand dropped. "This is for the best. You know it. I know it. We can't keep on like this. It isn't healthy."

"But I thought everything was better."

Ginny almost told him better isn't the same as good. After twenty years of okay, she needed more, deserved it even. But she knew Harry was incapable of understanding. He wanted to. Sometimes, during dinner parties or holidays, she'd catch him watching her parents with a wistful, almost jealous, expression. He understood something was missing, but not what. Trust. Absolute, unfettered trust that your partner will never abandon you, believe in you when everyone else thinks you're crazy, follow you to the ends of the earth, protect your children with their life, love you.

She remembered her parents begging her to wait a little longer. "Give it another year," Mum suggested a week before the wedding. "Make sure it's love, not lust." She ignored them just like she blew off Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Luna because she loved Harry. If Fleur could be beautiful enough for the both of them, she could do the same with love. Harry would learn how to love her back. He just needed time.

Time, a precious commodity she didn't miss until she woke up one morning with a child and a husband who knew more about his coworkers than his own family. When Harry mentioned having a second child, she jumped at the chance. Another baby would give Harry a reason to stay home more often, spend time with his family, rekindle their romance. Then less than eight months after Albus's birth, Harry became the youngest head of the auror office at age twenty-seven. By the time Lily was born, Harry worked eighty to one hundred hours a week and spent most nights on the couch in his office. She should have missed him. She didn't.

"What will we tell them?"

We, she thought bitterly, more like me. "The truth," she replied.

"We grew apart," Harry said.

She closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten. "It's difficult to grow apart when…" She cursed under breath. He doesn't understand, she reminded herself. He can't. Attachment disorder, Hermione called it, adding that Harry had always exhibited some sociopathic tendencies. He just channeled them in a more socially acceptable manner than most. She shoved those thoughts away.

She didn't want to think that Harry first killed without remorse at age eleven. She didn't want to remember all the people he killed in the line duty. True they all resisted arrest, but Ginny saw him afterwards. Eyes cold and uncaring. They broke the law. Therefore, they deserved to die. Simple. She'd lie to the kids that Dad was upset and send them to her mother's. Merlin forbid, they learn the truth. In Harry's eyes, those people weren't human. Therefore, they deserved to die.

"We grew apart," she agreed. "Part of me will always love you, but we can't keep pretending nothing's wrong. The kids are old enough to understand now." She brushed his fingertips with her own. "I don't want them to end up like us. I want them to find what my parents have, what I hoped we would have."

"I understand," he said, swallowing hard.

"Do you really?"

For a second, he looked lost like the little boy she first met looking for the train station. Then his mouth settled into a grim line. "I'm trying."

"I know."

"If I could go back and change everything, I would. Kill him before he killed my parents. Stop Sirius, Dumbledore, Remus, Snape, and Fred from dying. Then maybe we'd have a chance."

She almost laughed. Everyone on Harry's list failed him horribly except Fred. His parents trusted Pettigrew blindly. How hard is it to ask for an unbreakable vow that you won't tell anyone the secret without their permission before you make someone your secret keeper? Sirius pulled him out of the wreckage and handed his possibly injured godson to a man who couldn't even apparate them to safety. Remus abandoned him after his parents died, after third year, and then tried to abandon his own family during the war. Some Gryffindor, she thought bitterly. Snape abused him for six years then set him up to die. Dumbledore…Just thinking about Albus Dumbledore made her want to resurrect the bastard and strangle him with his beard.

If she went back in time, she knew exactly when she'd go. Summer of 1899. She'd kill Dumbledore and frame Gellert Grindelwald for his murder. Two birds with one stone. Then maybe Hogwarts would send a responsible adult to introduce Tom Riddle to the magical world. Someone who recognized exactly how messed up his childhood left him and took the appropriate steps to correct the damage before it was too late. Without Dumbledore, the two most emotionally damaged children to attend Hogwarts in the past century had a chance at a normal life.

"I know you would," she said. "Come. Our solicitors are waiting."


	2. The Minister's Husband

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Shattered Fairy Tale verse Ron and Hermione one-shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: If anyone's interested, I'm trialing a serialized, complete original on WattPad (username: [KristleLC](https://www.wattpad.com/user/KristleLC) title: [First Apprentice](https://www.wattpad.com/story/123517817-first-apprentice)). New chapters post on Fridays. I'm very new to WattPad and still figuring out the Android app so I may reply to PM's with "how did you..."
> 
> Oops, Shattered Fairy Tale is now a two-shot! I found a few snippets tucked inside my Dark Lady Rising (current original WIP) notebook and they grew. Word of caution, story ideas are like throwing gremlins out in the rain. Enjoy!

Ronald Weasley forced a smile on his lips and waved his fork toward the mound of Chinese takeout containers on the kitchen table. “Just saved your chicken from these two scamps. Best sit down and eat before they decide to ransom it. Three spring rolls and your mum’s fried rice, eh Rose?”

Hugo snickered while Rose rolled her eyes, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips. So there was a human hidden deep within her surly teenager facade. Good to know. Maybe if he kept chipping away, he could spend a few days with the sweet daughter he remembered before she left for Hogwarts.

“You’re not a cow, Ronald. Chew with your mouth closed.”

“Sorry,” he muttered. Leaning forward, he rummaged through the containers, peering through the fogged up plastic lids as he tried to suss out General Tso’s chicken from lo mein and tomorrow’s lunch.

“Sorry!” she shrieked.

With one last mournful glance at his cabbage rolls, Ron laid his fork down and exhaled, counting backwards from ten as he readied himself for yet another battle in the endless war known as his marriage.

“I bloody well know you’re sorry, you slovenly, quidditch-mad, pathetic excuse for a wizard! You can’t even do the laundry!”

One sweater. He accidentally, on purpose, shrunk the purple sweater his mum made for Hugo. Honestly, what little boy wants to wear purple in public? He stuffed it in the drawer with the potholders, which was far easier than stuffing his son in it. But Hermione still waved that stupid sweater like a battle flag whenever she wanted a fight.

“No, you expect me to do everything,” she continued. He glared at her, trying desperately to bite his tongue. She had a bad day. She’s just venting on the first available target. Don’t fight back. Not if he wanted to keep his marriage. “Baby, I’m hungry. Baby, the dishes need washing. Baby, pick up the children. Baby, baby, baby! You have two hands and a wand! Do it yourself!”

“Like you help around here,” he spat out. “All you do is work and read and work. There’s more to life than overtime, Hermione. For Merlin’s sake, you missed the Express!” He knew that she regretted it, he was pouring salt on still open wounds, and they absolutely should not do this in front of the children. Then he remembered Hugo, hugging his waist and burying his little face in his coat while he blinked back tears and whispered ‘Mum promised’ as if wishing would apparate her to his side. One more broken promise in a childhood of missed play dates, forgotten recitals, blue bed spreads when everyone knew his favorite color was red except his mother. They come first, he repeated to himself for the hundredth time that week. “Do you have any idea how hurt Hugo was when he got off the train and realized you weren’t there? You promised me, Hermione. You promised him! Does your family mean nothing to you?”

“They mean everything to me!”

“Act like it.”

Hair puffing up like a lion’s mane, she planted her hands on her hips and glared at him like he was a certain be-speckled beetle she’d love to squish. “When I ran for Minister, we agreed that you would handle the house.”

“You agreed. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. You didn’t even ask if I thought you should run!”

“We agreed,” she said, jaw locked in the same mulish expression she once wore during exams. “I cannot work eighty hour weeks and clean up after you and spend time with the children.” Always children in private, never kids – a reminder that she had Rose because he begged and Hugo so Rose wouldn’t be alone. “Look at this place! An army of house elves couldn’t clean it a month.”

“Maybe we should get one.” Static arched off her hair, crackling in the air between them. Stupid, he cursed himself. Why do I always say the wrong thing?

“A slave? You want me to buy a slave. Are you mad? You know how hard I worked to improve their conditions and your solution is to turn me into a bigger hypocrite than Draco Malfoy!?”

“Not like that. We’ll hire one like Dobby.”

She snorted. “House elves like Dobby are one in a million, which you would know if you had listened for five minutes at any point in the last ten years!”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look. Meanwhile, we’ll put an ad in the prophet for a short-term housekeeper.”

“I have a better idea. Instead of spending good gold on someone to pick up after you, why don’t you learn how to pick up after yourself? It’s a simple concept, but obviously beyond your comprehension. I suppose that puts you on the same intellectual level as most five-year-olds. Luckily, I didn’t marry you for your brains or your loyalty.”

Grinding his teeth, he clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked. “Twenty-two years and you still hold that against me.”

She lifted her chain and crossed her arms under her breasts – a pose he always loved for the amazing things it did to her cleavage. Before Rose’s birth, it promised lacy black thongs and naked weekends. Now, it just meant another cut. “When we needed you most, you abandoned us.”

“Everything worked out in the end.”

“For you!”

Behind him, the floo whooshed to life, green flames bathing Hermione in an ethereal glow.

“Shell Cottage,” Rose called out. He spun around, catching one last glimpse of his kids before they disappeared hand in hand.

Shoulders slumped, he dropped his head into his hands. Again, he failed them. No more. “I’m tired of fighting,” he whispered. “I don’t want to fight.”

“What are you saying?”

He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see her pain. “I think you already know. I’ll keep up appearances – balls, dinners, and whatnot. Can’t have a divorced minister. Otherwise,” he shrugged. “I’ll move my things into the guest room.”

“The children?”

“I put in for a part-time job share in the floo office. I start next week.” Another thing he hadn’t told his wife. It wasn’t a secret. He just didn’t think she’d care.

“But the aurors…”

“Hugo and Rose don’t need a minister and an auror. They need a parent who puts them first.”

“So you can laze around when Hogwarts is in session.”

“During the school year, I’ll work at Wheezes part-time too.”

“The press?”

“Won’t hear a word about this from me.”

“Sounds like you have everything figured out.” She laughed bitterly. “Thirty years and you never planned a thing. Did you ever love me?”

“Always. I never stopped. I just love them more.”


End file.
